Pursuit of Nazi collaborators
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The pursuit of Nazi collaborators refers to the post-WWII pursuit and apprehension of individuals who were not citizens of the Third Reich at the outbreak of World War II and collaborated with the Nazi regime during the war. Hence, this article does not cover former members of the NSDAP and their fate after the war.
Contents |
[edit] Background
The main motives for the apprehension of suspected collaborators were:
-
- Trial and, if guilty, punishment of traitors, for example members of the Waffen-SS British Free Corps.
- Revenge for those killed, especially those killed on ethnic grounds in the Holocaust (principally amongst Jews and Russians)
- A desire after a bitter war, to see those responsible face justice, and be characterised as criminals under a court of law (See Nuremberg Trials).
- To ensure that the acts done were brought to light and placed on formal record, with evidence, so that they could never be denied (some of the acts being so unthinkable that denial was plausible).
- A widespread sense that wanton annihilation of whole communities and cultures on such a scale was intolerable and must not be left unpursued even despite the inadequacy of existing laws.
Other motives included:
-
- Fear that a "Nazi underground" of some kind existed, such as the ODESSA, which would allow the enemy to somehow regroup for their proclaimed Fourth Reich.
- Political gain, in the turbulent politics of the last 1940's and the commencement of the Cold War.
[edit] Means of pursuit
This pursuit takes many forms, both individual and organised. Several organizations and individuals (famous Nazi hunters) pursue ex-Nazis or Nazi Collaborators who allegedly engaged in war crimes or crimes against humanity. Others were due to after-war spontaneous retaliation committed by populations within occupied countries.
Some of the main ways this pursuit took place were:
-
- Individuals who reported they saw someone that they recognised, who had now assumed an identity and were slipping back into civilian life undetected.
- Specific individuals named and sought by groups or governments for their activities in the war.
- "Witch hunt" in some areas for those suspected of having been collaborators.
- After a first period of spontaneous pursuit, provisional governments took the matter into their hands and brought suspected criminals before courts. The Nuremberg Trial in Germany judged only the highest Nazi authorities, but each country attempted in judging its Collaborationists (i.e. Pierre Laval in France was judged and sentenced to death, while Philippe Pétain was also sentenced to death, but Charles de Gaulle later commuted his sentence into a life condemnation).
- Government action - investigation and interrogation of people suspected to be such. For example: U.S. DOJ Office of Special Investigations
- Non-governmental agencies like the Simon Wiesenthal Center
- Infiltration of Nazi support and escape organisations (the most famous one being the ODESSA network and its various "ratlines") and those believed to be aiding and abetting them.
- Vigilantism and "summary justice", often without trial.
However, many suspected war criminals were also amnestied, some of whom succeeding in reaching high positions in post-war administrations (i.e. Maurice Papon, who became Police Prefect of Paris in charge during the Algerian War (1954-62), leading to tragic events such as the 1961 Paris massacre).
[edit] Pursuit in specific countries
[edit] Argentina
Many Nazis lived for decades in Argentina with the authorities looking the other way. Juan Perón's government protected and abetted Nazis fleeing Europe after the war and they settled in the southern regions of the country (especially Bariloche), especially for the physical similarities that exist between this area and the German Alps. It is precisely in Bariloche where Erich Priebke was living when Argentina extradited him to Italy in 1995 for his alleged participation in the 1944 Ardeatine massacre. Notably, Adolf Eichmann was kidnapped from Argentina in 1961 to be tried and subsequently hanged in Israel for his crimes during the Holocaust. Josef Mengele also exiled himself in Argentina from 1949 to 1959, as well as Danish SS Carl Værnet (1893-1965), doctor at Buchenwald concentration camp, who fled to Brazil and then to Buenos Aires. Nazi hunter Efraim Zuroff also tracked the Ustasha Dinko Šakić, the former commandant of Jasenovac concentration camp (nicknamed the “Auschwitz of the Balkans”). In early October 1999, Sakic who lived for more than fifty years in Argentina, was sentenced in Zagreb to twenty years’ imprisonment for his crimes.
[edit] Australia
Latvia applied to Australia to extradite Konrads Kalejs, allegedly a senior officer in the pro-Nazi Arajs Commando, but he died on November 8, 2001 before he could be extradited. Kalejs migrated to Australia in 1950 and took citizenship. He would have been the first Australian citizen extradited to face war crimes charges.
Hungary is currently seeking to extradite Charles Zentai from Australia. He is accused of the murder of Peter Balazs, an 18-year old Jewish man, in Budapest in November 1944, while serving in the Hungarian Army. The extradition case is before the Australian Federal Court.
[edit] Belgium
Belgium imprisoned Belgian nationals who had joined the Waffen-SS and executed some.
[edit] Chile
As in Argentina, several former Nazis escaped to this country. After Augusto Pinochet's 1973 coup, some of them, such as Paul Schäfer, chief of the Colonia Dignidad cult, actively participated to the repression against left-wing activists and trade-unionists. For example, the Colonia Dignidad was used as a laboratory and a detention center by the DINA secret police. Flying away from Chile in 1997, where he was pursuited for child sex abuse charges, Paul Schäfer was arrested near Buenos Aires in March 2005 and extradited to Chile, where he has been also charged of Juan Maino's 1976 disappearance. Walter Rauff (1906-1984), SS-Standartenführer and member of the RSHA, also worked for Chilean intelligence. Arrested in 1962, he was freed by the Chilean Supreme Court five months later. Rauff in Chile in 1984 of a heart attack. His funerals were the occasion of a Nazi celebration.
[edit] Czechoslovakia
Actions against Nazi collaborators in Czechoslovakia, real or alleged, had two significant forms.
Immediately after liberation of Czechoslovakia by Soviet and American armies, in an atmosphere of chaos, wild chases began. Individual acts of revenge, mob violence, and simply criminal acts motivated by the possibility to rob or loot targets, occurred. In some places, where conducted by organized groups of self-styled partisans, violence resembled what is today known as ethnic cleansing. In most places this stopped when the provisional Czechoslovakian government and local authorities took power.
Other forms included legal action, undertaken by the state administration, after the war, until the regular Czechoslovakian parliament was established. President Benes ruled by issuing decrees, which were later ratified by parliament.
By decree 5/1945 property of untrustworthy persons was put under national administration. Untrustworthy were considered German and Hungarian nationals, people who were active in destruction of Czechoslovak state and its democratic government, supported Nazi occupation by any means or were members of organizations considered fascist or collaborator.
By the same decree, property of people of German and Hungarian nationality, who could prove they were anti-Nazi, should have been returned to them.
By decree 12/1945 Sb. farm property of German and Hungarian nationals or citizens was confiscated, unless they could prove active resistance against Nazism. Property of traitors, and enemies of republic was confiscated no matter what nationality or citizenship.
By decree 16/1945 Sb. special tribunals were set up. These people courts had right to sentence to long term imprisonment, life sentence or death. Prosecuted were
- traitors, members of SS, FS and similar organizations, the officials of NSDAP or SdP, those who supported Nazi movement by any means, including verbal support or advocacy of occupation
- those who committed crimes against humanity, contributed to false imprisonment, ordered forced labour
- informants, or anyone who caused imprisonment of any citizen
No prosecution was based on ethnicity. However, many Sudeten Germans were members of NSDAP or voiced support for annexation of Sudetenland by Third Reich.
By 33/1945 Sb. people of German and Hungarian nationality or ethnicity lost Czechoslovakian citizenship. However, they had right to apply for renewal.
Most problematic is the law 115/1946 about resistance against Nazi regime, which shifted limit of immunity to year 1946, effectively amnestying all crimes, acts of individual revenge and atrocities against Germans and Hungarians long after war.
People, who lost Czechoslovakian citizenship and did not apply for new or did not get it, were transferred to Germany. (Population transfers are discussed in article Expulsion of Germans after World War II).
[edit] France
After the liberation, France was swept for a short period with a wave of executions of Collaborationists. Women who were suspected of having romantic liaisons with Germans, or more often of being German prostitutes, were publicly humiliated by having their heads shaved. Those who had engaged in the black market were also stigmatized as "war profitors" (profiteurs de guerre), and popularly called "BOF" (Beurre Oeuf Fromage, or Butter Eggs Cheese, because of the products sold at outrageous prices during the Occupation). However, the Provisional Government of the French Republic (GPRF, 1944-46) quickly reestablished order, and brought Collaborationists before the courts. Many convicted Collaborationists were then amnestied under the Fourth Republic (1946-54), while some civil servants, such as Maurice Papon, succeeding in holding important functions even under Charles de Gaulle and the Fifth Republic (1958-).
Three different periods are distinguished by historians:[citation needed]
- the first phase of popular convictions (épuration sauvage): executions without judgments and shaving of women's heads. Estimations by police prefects made in 1948 and 1952 counted as much as 6,000 executions before the Liberation, and 4,000 afterwards.[citation needed]
- the second phase (legal epuration or épuration légale), which began with Charles de Gaulle's June 26 and June 27, 1944 ordonnances on epuration (de Gaulle's first ordonnance instituting Commissions of epuration was enacted on August 18, 1943) : judgments of Collaborationists by the Commissions d'épuration, who condemned approximatively 120,000 persons (Charles Maurras, leader of the royalist Action française, condemned to life sentence on January 25, 1945, etc.), including 1,500 death sentences (Joseph Darnand, head of the Milice, and Pierre Laval, head of the French state, were executed after trial on October 4, 1945, Pierre Pucheu was inculpated end of 1943, Robert Brasillach, executed on February 6, 1945, etc.) — much of which were later amnestied.[citation needed]
- the third phase, more lenient towards Collaborationists (the trial of Philippe Pétain or of writer Louis-Ferdinand Céline)
Finally, came the period for amnesty and graces (i.e. Jean-Pierre Esteva, Xavier Vallat, creator of the General Commission for Jewish Affairs, René Bousquet, head of French police, etc.)
Others historians have distinguished epuration against intellectuals (Brasillach, Céline, etc.), industrials, fighters (LVF, etc.) and civil servants (Papon, etc.).[citation needed]
Philippe Pétain, the former head of Vichy France, was charged with treason in July 1945. He was convicted and sentenced to death by firing squad, but Charles de Gaulle commuted the sentence to life imprisonment. Most convicts were amnestied a few years later. In the police, collaborators soon resumed official responsibilities. This continuity of the administration was pointed out, in particular concerning the events of the Paris massacre of 1961, executed under the orders of head of the Parisian police Maurice Papon, who was judged in the 1990s for his role during Vichy.
The French members of the Waffen-SS Charlemagne Division who survived the war were regarded as traitors. Some of the more prominent officers were executed, while the rank-and-file were given prison terms; some of them were given the option of doing time in Indochina (1946-54) with the Foreign Legion instead of prison.
Singer Tino Rossi was detained in Fresnes prison, where, according to Combat newspaper, prison guards asked him for autographs. Pierre Benoit or Arletty were also detained. Collaborationists were brought to the Vélodrome d'hiver, Fresnes prison or the Drancy internment camp.
Many war criminals were judged only in the 1980s: Paul Touvier, Klaus Barbie (who worked after war for the CIA), Maurice Papon (above-mentioned), René Bousquet, head of French police during the war, and his deputy Jean Leguay (the last two were both convicted for their responsibilities in the July 1942 rafle du Vel'd'hiv, or Vel'd'Hiv raid). Famous Nazi hunters Serge and Beate Klarsfeld spent decades trying to bring them before the courts. A fair amount of Collaborationists then joined the OAS terrorist movement during the Algerian War (1954-62). Jacques de Bernonville escaped to Quebec, then Brazil. Jacques Ploncard d'Assac became counsellor of Salazar in Portugal.
Executions without trials and other forms of "popular justice" were harshly criticized immediately after the war, with circles close to Pétainists advancing the figures of 100,000, and denouncing the "Red Terror," "anarchy" or "blind vengeance." Journalist Robert Aron estimated the popular executions to a number of 40,000 in 1960, provoking de Gaulle's surprise, who estimated the real number to be around 10,000, which is the figure today admitted by mainstream historians. Approximatively 9,000 of these 10,000 refers to summary executions in the whole of the country, which occurred during battle. In absolute value (numbers), they're has been less legal executions in France than in neighbouring, and lot smaller, Belgium, and less internments than in Norway or Netherlands.[citation needed]
[edit] Greece
Greece was under occupation by the Third Reich from 1941 to 1944 (Axis occupation of Greece during World War II). After the liberation, the country followed a controversial period of "de-nazification" that brought death penalties (often shifted to life imprisionment) to many collaborators and especially former leaders of the Nazi-held puppet regime in Athens. General Georgios Tsolakoglou, the first Quisling prime minister, was tried by the Special Collaborators Court in 1945 and sentenced to death, but his penalty was commuted to life imprisonment. The following Quisling leader Konstantinos Logothetopoulos, who had fled to Germany after the Wehrmacht's withdrawal, was caught by the U.S. military and was condemned to lifelong imprisonment. In 1951, he was given parole and thus died outside prison, but stigmatised by the whole country, ten years later. Ioannis Rallis, the third Quisling prime minister, was trailed on treason charge. The court sentenced him to life imprisonment. Many other Greek collaborators had similar fates.
[edit] Netherlands
So many Dutch men had volunteered for the Waffen-SS that the country took many years to come to terms with the extent to which this had happened. Men who had volunteered for the Waffen-SS and returned to the Netherlands were interned. Subsequently some rose to prominence in the political and business fields, but because of their background they remained vulnerable to blackmail.
[edit] Norway
Vidkun Quisling, the war time Norwegian "Minister President", along with, among others, Nasjonal Samling leaders, Albert Viljam Hagelin and Ragnar Skancke, were convicted and executed by firing squad. A total of 45 people were sentenced to death and 37 were executed (25 Norwegians and 12 Germans). Both at the time and later these sentences have been the subject of some debate, since the decision to reintroduce capital punishment to the Norwegian legal system for the post war trials was based on clauses in military law. Capital punishment in the Criminal Code had been abolished in 1904. The decision was made by the exiled Norwegian government in London in 1944, later to be debated three times in the Parliament during the trials, and to be confirmed by the Supreme Court.
The term "quisling" has become a synonym in many European languages for traitor (see Judas, and the understanding of Benedict Arnold in the United States).
[edit] Palestine
After the war, Amin al-Husayni, Mufti of Jerusalem, fled to Switzerland, was detained and put under house arrest in France, but escaped and was given asylum in Egypt. Zionist groups petitioned the British to have him indicted as a war criminal. The British declined, partly because they considered the evidence inconclusive but also because such a move would have added to their growing problems in Egypt and Palestine, where al-Husayni was still popular. Yugoslavia unsuccessfully sought his extradition.
[edit] Poland
In occupied Poland the status of Volksdeutsche had many privileges but one big disadvantage: Volksdeutsche were conscripted into the German army. The Volksliste had 4 categories. No. 1 and No. 2 were considered ethnic Germans, while No. 3 and No. 4 were ethnic Poles that signed the Volksliste. No. 1 and No. 2 in the Polish areas re-annexed by Germany numbered ~1,000,000 and No. 3 and No. 4 ~1,700,000. In the General Government there were ~120,000 Volksdeutsche.
Volksdeutsche of Polish origins were treated by Poles with special contempt, and also it constituted high treason according to Polish law.
German citizens that remained on territory of Poland became as a group personae non gratae. They had a choice of applying for Polish citizenship or being expulsed to Germany. The property that belonged to Germans, German companies and German state, was confiscated by the Polish state along with many other properties in communist Poland. German owners, as explicitly stated by the law, were not eligible for any compensation. Those who decided to apply became subject to a verification process. At the beginning many acts of violence against Volksdeutsche took place. However, soon the verification of Volksdeutsche became controlled by the juridical process and was completed in a more controlled manner.
[edit] Soviet Union
Soviet and other Russian members of the Russian Liberation Army and the Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia were pursued tried and either sent to the gulags or executed.
Many Soviet Prisoners of War were seen to have collaborated with the Nazis, even if they had done no more than been captured by the Wehrmacht and spent the war in a camp. Many such unfortunate Soviet citizen was persecuted on their repatriation to the Soviet Union.
In general, after a short trial, if they were not executed, Nazi collaborators were imprisoned in Gulag forced labor camps.
The Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was abolished and Volga Germans were banished from their settlements on the Volga River with many being deported to Siberia or Kazakhstan.
[edit] United Kingdom
At the end of the war a number of people were tried for high treason. These included members of the Waffen-SS British Free Corps and William Joyce (Lord Haw-Haw), who, although a U.S. citizen, had travelled on a British passport.
As agreed at the Yalta Conference, the British handed back many Soviet citizens to the Soviet regime. Some of these were collaborators who had fought in the Russian Liberation Army. In later years there would be a controversy because some of those handed over were White Russians who had never been Soviet citizens. Yugoslavs were handed over to Tito's forces, and many were subsequently killed.
In 1948 Victor Arajs, who was the leader of the eponymous commando unit which helped the Nazis murder the Jews of Latvia and Belarus, had been captured in the British zone of occupied Germany after the war but was allowed to go free. He remained at large until 1979 when West Germany put him on trial.
One of Arajs's deputies, Harijs Svikeris, settled in Britain after the war and in the 1990s was thought to be a strong candidate to be prosecuted under the War Crimes Act, but he died before a prosecution was brought.
On April 1, 1999, Anthony Sawoniuk was sentenced to life imprisonment after being found guilty of murdering two Jews in the UK's first full Nazi war crimes trial. Sawoniuk had led "search-and-kill" police squads to hunt down Jews trying to escape after nearly 3,000 were massacred at Domachevo in Nazi-occupied Belarus during September, 1942. He died in prison on November 7, 2005 at the age of 84[1].
[edit] Yugoslavia
The reprisals for collaboration with the Nazis were particularly harsh in Yugoslavia, because collaborators were also on the losing side of a de facto civil war fought on the Yugoslav territory during WWII. The Partisans executed many Ustashe and Chetniks, as well as their collaborators. One of the best documented incidents was the Bleiburg massacre.
